General Health

According to the American Thyroid Association, “More than 12 percent of the U.S. population will develop a thyroid condition during their lifetime. An estimated 20 million Americans have some form of thyroid disease. Up to 60 percent of those with thyroid disease are unaware of their condition.” This is a staggering number! The real question is why? This is one of many diseases in the United States that seems to be growing at an astronomical rate. What few people understand, even many of those who have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, or high TSH levels, is that 90% of all hypothyroid cases in the United States are technically autoimmune conditions and not a primary condition of the thyroid. This is a very important thing to understand. I have had numerous people in my functional medicine programs that have been hypothyroid for many years and have never heard the term Hashimoto’s. Hashimoto’s disease is a condition in which your immune system attacks your thyroid. Again, if you are in the United States and have hypothyroidism, then you have a 90% chance of actually having Hashimoto’s. This is crucial to understand because the protocols used to help with this condition are completely different than if you had true primary thyroid disease.

With primary hypothyroidism the thyroid itself is dysfunctional and medical doctors must treat the thyroid itself, many times with medications. This means that there is an underactive thyroid despite the body telling it to produce hormone. However, the other 90% have an autoimmune condition. In this case, the thyroid itself is fine, it is the immune system that is dysfunctional. Wouldn’t it make sense to then address the immune system? This is not what is typically done. Either the patient doesn’t know if they Hashimoto’s, or they know they have it and still the sole means of treatment is addressing the thyroid. Many times these patients have similar comments:

My thyroid labs are normal, but I still feel terrible!

Since being diagnosed my doctor keeps increasing the dosage of my medication.

Sometimes I have hypothyroid symptoms and sometimes I have hyperthyroid symptoms.

All three of these comments are typical and occur when the immune system is not being addressed. As is with everything in functional medicine, you MUST address the cause of the problem and not bandage the symptoms. Hashimoto’s disease is similar to a building on fire. When the building is on fire there are symptoms of smoke, ash, and flames. The building doesn’t have an issue that needs to be addressed, the source of the fire needs to be stopped. The fire is put out temporarily (medication) and the symptoms (fire, smoke, ash) cease. However, nobody thinks to pay attention to the person that lit the fire and so he does it again and the building once again is on fire. Should we just continue to put the fire out each time he lights it? Or should we figure out who is lighting the fire and then stop him from lighting it? I think most people would agree the latter is the best solution. Same goes with the thyroid. Let’s stop just putting a bandaid on the thyroid and figure out what keeps lighting the fire that is irritating the thyroid.

In autoimmune diseases it is crucial to figure out what is causing the immune system to be up-regulated. We all want an immune system that works effectively, but when it becomes too aggressive it can cause many problems. If we can keep the immune system from being irritated then we can keep this response low and the thyroid will not be attacked. The trick is to figure out exactly what things are irritating your immune system. Some common irritants and food, bugs, and other stressors. If you are eating foods that are causing inflammation and increasing immune system activity, then you thyroid is a likely target that will be impacted. Uncovering your specific triggers is important to do as soon as possible so that you can restore normal function and stop damaging your thyroid. Many of these triggers are common, but each individual can vary. There are many lab tests that can help determine some of these triggers, but also addressing nutrition, sleep, and stress management prove to be helpful as well. In essence, creating a completely healthy lifestyle that is customized to you is the answer. This will not only alleviate thyroid symptoms, but will provide you will the best possible chance for a life that is long and full of vitality.

One of the most common things that I see in my office is Sciatica. In fact, many patients come to their first visit and tell me straight away that they have sciatica. Self diagnosis is common today as you can find anything you want on the internet. However, what most people don’t understand is that sciatic symptoms can have multiple different causes. This means that sciatica treatment can vary depending on the primary cause. The real trick is to uncover the true source. Is is stemming from poor soft tissue health in the low back? Scar tissue build-up in the hips and glutes? Poor pelvis function? Poor lumbar spine function? A herniated disc in the lower back? Poor postural position of the low back and pelvis? Or more commonly, is it a combination of many of these? Many times therapists take a cookie-cutter approach to sciatica. Adjusting the lumbar spine and pelvis, stretches for the piriformis, and maybe some electrical stimulation to the area. This can sometimes help overcome the pain and symptoms, but most of the times function is never addressed. This is the real source of the problem. Some dysfunction in postural positions or movement has taken place that led to the problem. Unless this is addressed the problem is likely to return.

The other issue I see is that people many times have an MRI that is done because of nerve symptoms that are present. While this is not a bad idea you always have to remember that the pain is not always caused by what is found in the MRI. For example, if you take an MRI of someone’s low back, many times you are likely to find that is does not look perfect. You may find some mild narrowing of spaces or even some mild disc bulging. This does not mean that you can automatically assign these findings to the source of all the patient’s pain. This is why many times surgery to the lumbar spine fails to resolve the patients complaints. The surgeon did a great job at making the MRI look ‘normal’, but it may not have been the actual thing that was causing the symptoms in the first place. In fact, in the vast majority of cases conservative care will be enough to take care of the symptoms and restore function without pain. However, there needs to be a comprehensive approach to this care. You must address the soft tissue health, the proper joint function, the nerve health, postural positions, strength capacity, AND movement patterns. You cannot just pick one and roll the dice. If you fail to correct postural and movement patterns then treatment will likely fail or the problem will shortly reoccur. We see this many times in our office as patients come to us after numerous other practitioners have failed to resolve the problem. This is not because they are bad at the services they provide, it is simply because they did not address all of the problems at the same time.

Understand the basic premise behind sciatica treatment is taking pressure off of the sciatic nerve, wherever the compression may be happening. Whether this is caused by scar tissue, poor joint movement, or poor functional patterns, it doesn’t really matter. All we have to do is uncover all the dysfunctions, restore normal function, and then let the body heal on its own. If you are suffering from sciatica, just make sure that your sciatica treatment program is comprehensive and addressing all these areas to ensure you the best chance for success.

For many years people have been taking multivitamins as a way to “cover the bases” in an attempt to optimize their health. Not a bad idea. Multivitamins are a good way to make sure that you are receiving adequate amounts of the most common vitamins and minerals. Dietary sources are always the best way to get these, but it usually can’t hurt to add a little extra just in case. For those who truly assess their health with a functional medicine practitioner you can customize which variety of multi might be best for you given your specific findings, or even better just target specific micro-nutrients.

However, next generation “Multis” should now be seen as probiotics. The amount of medical research into the microbiome is mind-blowing! The microbiome is basically the collection of microorganisms that are present within the human body. The importance of these organisms cannot be overstated and their exact contribution to our health and/or disease is just starting to be uncovered. You can think of the microbiome as an opportunistic environment. These microorganisms live together in what should be a ‘balance of power’. When various organisms grow in number excessively they can crowd out other organisms. This can sometimes be a good thing, or a bad thing. If it is a bacteria that tends to lend itself towards improved health then it can help to keep the harmful bugs from growing excessively in number. However, if the opposite occurs then these beneficial bacteria cannot help keep the balance and harmful organisms are allowed to flourish. The ideal ‘balance of power’ is not completely understood and may even vary from person to person. However, we do have enough research to understand many of the different strains of bacteria that actually help to support a healthy environment. These strains are the most common ones seen in probiotic supplements today. However, we also know that variety is important because having one strain dominate in number too excessively, even if it’s a ‘healthy’ strain, can begin to crowd out other healthy bacteria needed for optimal health. For this reason, I typically suggest that people either cycle which probiotic they take, in order to get a wide variety of bacteria exposure, or make sure to take one that is broad spectrum and expansive. This allows you to attempt to maintain a healthy and varied gut environment.

Another easy and sometimes more effective way to help improve gut bacteria health is to consume fermented foods. Fermented foods, such as sauerkraut and kimchi, are foods that are created by allowing bacteria to ferment the sugars in the food. So, you are actually consuming foods that are full of bacteria. Some studies have shown that eating fermented foods, such as sauerkraut, has more impact on actually changing the makeup of the microbiome than taking probiotics. I say just do both.

Pretend that you gut environment is filled with millions of different soldiers, some groups of soldiers are good and others are bad. The bad soldiers can’t do too much harm if the good soldiers are allowed to flourish and keep the peace. However, if this balance is disturbed and the bad soldiers are allowed to grow in number, then the susceptibility for harmful situations becomes more prevalent. This is a good way to imagine the environment in the human microbiome. For now, the best thing we can do to attempt to keep the good soldiers healthy and strong is to support them with things like probiotics and fermented foods.

Sleep is really an under-appreciated art. Many people brag about how little sleep they can get away with and still function at high levels. Sleeping 5 hours and night is seen as a milestone and many people are jealous of those that can pull it off. This ‘achievement’ is only seen as a benefit because our work lives get more and more demanding every year. However, all the most recent research is starting to show the real importance of sleep and how much it plays a role in overall health and longevity. For instance, we now know that sleep is the only time that our brains gets to detoxify. Without proper deep sleep this process cannot occur efficiently and toxins can build up in the brain. And we do not want any toxins lingering in our brains for long.

Sleep is also the time when our hormones work to regenerate our bodies, recover from the day’s stressors, and repair any damage. Limiting the hours of ‘shut-eye’ reduces the time that your body can grow, heal, and restore. So, while it may seem counter-intuitive, the more you sleep, the more productive you may become. While sleeping excessive hours can reduce brain performance, sleeping too little can also do the same. However, I think that we can safely say that most people are not struggling from a problem of getting too much sleep. Those instances are few and typically because of a chronic disease process that is occurring. For the rest of us, sleeping more should only prove to improve health. And it is not just hours spent in bed, but the quality and quantity of time that you are actually sleeping. So, here are a few tips to help you achieve that goal.

Get Rid of the Blues

Blue light is part of the spectrum of light, but is specifically important because it can directly affect the body’s circadian rhythms, or biological clock. This is important because if too much blue light it detected by the eye at night then the body thinks that it is the day and time to fire on all cylinders. This obviously is a bad idea for someone trying to sleep. Problem is that most people are exposed to blue light just before bed as it is present in our phones, laptops, computers, TVs, etc. So, get rid of the electronics at least 1 hour prior to bed to avoid this ‘blue-light confusion’. Or, if you just can’t you’ll need to wear blue-light blocking glasses to avoid telling your body it is daytime.

Stay in Rhythm

Your body’s circadian rhythms are very important to regulating many functions within your body. Many hormones fluctuate based on these rhythms so allowing your body to maintain a ‘normal’ is important not only for getting the right amount of sleep, but also so that you don’t set up an environment for dysfunction hormones. We are naturally geared to use light and dark as our body’s signals. However, given our current lifestyles we can stay in bright environments whenever we want. For best health try and keep the same sleep/wake cycle every night. This means having a set bedtime and a set wake time. While this may vary slightly, trying to stay on a normal rhythm will help you get better sleep.

Be Cool

Research shows that sleeping in a cool environment is more conducive to quality sleep. Our body is wired to cool internally close to bedtime so that it is easier for us to sleep and achieve deep sleep. Too much heat and it disturbs our ‘shut-off’ process. This doesn’t mean that you have to feel cold, but the room should be a cool. A temperature of 65 degrees in the room is shown to have best results, but having it as low at 60 degrees can also be beneficial is you sleep with excessive amounts of sheets.

Come to the Dark Side

This means the darker the better. Even ambient amounts of light can be enough to rouse our brains and prevent full, deep REM sleep. While this sounds obvious most people’s bedrooms are littered with light from their clocks, TVs, DVD players, fans, phones, etc. These lights can be sensed by our bodies and can disrupt sleep. So try to eliminate all artificial light in the bedroom and get blackout curtains if you live an area that has lots of neighborhood light. This ensures that your brain and body know it is bedtime and can get the appropriate rest.

Keep Caffeine as a Morning Treat

Caffeine consumption does have an affect on sleep. Whether or not you can fall asleep it can disrupt your ability to get quality, deep sleep. Remember it’s not all about how many hours your eyes are shut, but the quality of sleep that you get. Caffeine stays in your body longer than you’d think. Avoiding caffeine after lunch can help your sleep quality improve and maybe just get rid of some of your fatigue that is causing you to drink so much caffeine in the first place!

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When someone is training, whether it be for an event or just to get in better shape, many hours are spent not only planning each days’ activities, but also in working towards a goal. Most athletes spend most of their time making sure that they get enough training hours into each week. A smaller number of athletes spend adequate time ensuring that their nutrition supports their training efforts (which is as equally important as the training itself). However, very few athletes give enough attention and respect to one of the most important parts of training: Recovery. Recovery is the glue that holds everything together. Without this glue, areas in the body will gradually become dysfunctional and begin to fall apart. Physical training, in any form, pushes the body to its limits. This causes the body to breakdown as limits are surpassed and the athlete tries to make improvements; as muscles and other soft tissues are stressed, as in training, they essentially breakdown and cause micro-tears in the muscle fibers. After training, the body responds by building that tissue up stronger than before to support such efforts the next time. This is how muscles become larger and performance is increased. Now, what happens if you put your body through the same physical stress before it has had time to recover? Essentially, you will be breaking down tissue that began the day at 90% instead of 100%. This means that by the time you are done training you will have once again broken down the muscle tissue, but this time to a greater extent since you were not 100% at the start of training. Now, the body is a remarkable machine that can adapt to many situations and learn to cope with many stresses. By no means does this mean that you have to be 100% rested and fresh before each day of training. However, if this scenario is repeated numerous times you can see how eventually the tissue will not be able to withstand the same levels of training. Soon the tissue will be starting the days’ training at 20% and little work can be done before the tissue fails and injury occurs. Recovery is a complex puzzle that requires more than just a little time off. Understanding the importance of recovery and how to implement it correctly into your training plan will not only boost performance, but it will keep you active and injury free. In my many years of clinical practice I have seen numerous athletes competing in a wide variety of recreational and professional sports. Those who pay attention to the various parts of recovery almost always do better in competition. There is a simple reason for this: improved recovery = an increased ability to train harder = better results! In my opinion, the success rates of training programs hinge on the things done when you are not actually training!

Running labs can be one of the best tools to assess heath or uncover disease processes. There are countless things that can be scientifically tested and the technology gets better and more accurate everyday. Most people are surprised to find that some of these tests are even possible and that many health status factors can be tested in the comfort of your own home. The biggest problem is that most of the labs that are typically run for patients are driven by what can be medicated. Unfortunately, this only tells us when we have already reached the stage where we have a disease. Don’t you think it would make more sense to start using lab testing to assess health so that you can avoid the diagnosis of a disease? Well that’s what we are doing at Momentum! There are many different tests that we use to help people correct or optimize their health. Here are three examples of ones we commonly use in our clinic.

Adrenal Status: DUTCH testing

If I asked you to tell me one major thing that impacted people’s health negatively, I’m sure many of you would say STRESS. And for those of you who said that you would be absolutely correct! However, most people have never had their adrenals tested accurately. Cortisol, one of the major hormones produced in the adrenals, is your stress hormone. Your body uses this to help you respond to stressful environments so that you can ‘run from the tiger‘. However, in today’s world we never stop running from the tiger. Accurately testing adrenal function can help uncover a huge piece of the health and/or performance puzzle. DUTCH testing is the newest and most accurate way to assess adrenal health.

Digestive Health: GI-MAP

All of the cutting-edge research is continually uncovering the importance of the GI system in overall health. The ‘second brain’, which is the new name for the GI system, is one of the most important organs in the body. Not only is it responsible for the absorption of nutrients, but it is also responsible for immune system health, hormone production and conversion, and many other critical processes. Ensuring that the GI system is healthy and free of harmful ‘bugs’ is a great way to assess health. The newest technology is called the GI-MAP test. This test uses DNA technology to analyze the sample for bacteria, parasites, and viruses. The testing is extremely accurate and one of the best ways to see if your GI system is compromised.

Organic Acids

One advantage of lab testing is that it allows us to create detailed strategies to correct any dysfunctions. The organic acids test is a great test to give you a snapshot of what is going on inside the body. The test we use gives 74 metabolite markers that help show how efficiently numerous reactions in your body are occurring. It helps to assess nutritional deficiencies, antioxidant deficiencies, fatty acid metabolism, yeast overgrowths, neurotransmitter levels, and Krebs cycle (energy productions) abnormalities. This comprehensive test is probably one of the best ways to optimize health and improve function.

These three tests are just a sample of things that can be scientifically tested to truly get a picture of your health. Once we start using labs to improve normal function instead of just reacting to disease, we will be able to help people feel better and avoid many chronic diseases. If you are interested in taking look at your true health status, contact our office today for more information.

I don’t think anyone would argue that using less chemicals is always better. However, most people don’t take the time to really assess how many chemicals they are surrounded by on a daily basis. From household cleaning products to hygiene products, we come in contact with dozens, if not hundreds, of chemicals daily. One simple way to start decreasing this chemical load is to start intelligently deciding what household cleaners you purchase. Instead of just picking up the most popular product or the one at Costco, make the smart decision and pick the one that is best for your overall health. This is a very simple choice and can be done slowly. There is no reason to throw everything out in your house and go buy all new products. Once one of your products runs out just research a better option and make the switch. Most of the time you will not notice any deficiency in how things are cleaned and will be drastically reducing the chemicals around your house.

The Environmental Working Group has made it even easier! The EWG just recently released their 2016 Guide to Healthy Cleaning. They have done all the research and spent countless hours figuring out which products are the safest for you and your family. You can now even download their app which has a built-in scanner so you can scan products while your are shopping. There is really no reason not to buy cleaner products, so get on it! Go to the following link to look at their full list of product ratings:

Making these small changes can make a huge impact on not only your health, but your family’s health as well. You will be reducing your overall toxic load, improving your health, and still keeping your house and body clean!

One of my favorite quotes as it relates to power creation in the human body I read many years ago in Stuart McGill’s “Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance”. When speaking about how the body can generate the most power the book says, “You can’t fire a cannon from a canoe”. This image has stuck with me ever since I first read it and seems to simply explain how we need to address the athlete’s conditioning if we want to ultimately create maximum power. The absolute, crushing power of a cannon ball shot from a cannon is unmistakable. If you decided one day that you wanted to create a cannon with more power that could ultimately create more force, the first instinct would be to build a bigger cannon that used a bigger cannon ball. This is often the same instinct that we have as athletes when it relates to our sport. Getter faster on the bike means getting a better bike, a lighter shoe, a lighter wheel, or more aerodynamic frame. To get faster, runners want to get the best shoe and just run more miles. To get bigger muscles athletes think only to lift heavier weights and lift them more often. While all of these things do help to improve the performance of the athlete, the most important piece of equipment is often neglected: the body.
Let’s look back at our example of the cannon. What if all the focus was placed on building a bigger cannon and heavier cannon ball without paying much attention to the stability of the cannon. This is eloquently illustrated by thinking about firing a cannon from a canoe. If you put a powerful cannon on a canoe and fired it, the explosion would cause more energy displaced in the movement of the canoe rather than in the propulsion of the cannon ball. This same principle can be seen with athletes. Too often athletes are narrowly focused on big muscles and better gear, rather than focusing on the stability of their cannon. Remember that the more you stabilize the cannon, the more power you can create when shooting the cannon ball. Any loss in the stability of the cannon directly relates to loss of power in the firing of the ball. This is no different than the human body. If athletes lack proper stability then maximum power can never be created. This goes for every sport: golf, running, cycling, basketball, football, etc. Taking the cannon off of the canoe and putting it on the ground obviously yields better results. For the highly competitive athlete this needs to be taken one step further. Not only does the cannon need to be on solid ground, but it needs to be completely immobilized so that no energy is wasting moving the cannon when fired. This ultimate stability of the cannon allows for maximum force dispersed to the cannon ball.
For the athlete, this ultimate stability needs to be realized not only through the proper fitness training, but also through optimizing the stability of the internal health. Let’s briefly discuss these two:
Proper fitness training for the athlete needs to be very specific to what muscles and movements are involved in the sport. It also needs to build an athlete from the ground-up. This means making sure there is a proper base strength and muscular control from which power and strength can be built upon. It is far too common to see athletes who focus on power and strength, but have very poor stabilizing capacity and fine motor control.
Optimizing internal health is probably never even considered by the athlete as a way to ‘stabilize the cannon’. This is where I find true performance enhancement can really be achieved. Getting bigger, stronger, or faster is completely determined by an athletes ability to recover. This was discussed at length in a previous blog (read here: http://momentumsportstherapy.com/category/sports-and-fitness/) so we’ll keep it simple here. Just know that improving your overall health is the absolute best way to be able to train harder and recover faster. Using specified lab work, precise nutritional intervention, and high-quality supplementation can give athletes huge advantages in competition.
If you are a serious athlete that either wants to compete at a high level or stay in the sport for many years, start to consider that optimizing your health is the first priority to achieving those goals.

Now, bring the broth to a boil. When it has reached the boil, reduce to a simmer & simmer until done (fish- 8 hours; chicken- 12-24 hours; beef- 24 hours

During the few hours of simmering, remove the impurities that float to the surface; check every 20 mins. for 2 hours to remove this (grass-fed and healthy animals will produce much less of this than conventional animals)

During the last 30 mins. add the garlic & parsley

Remove from the heat and cool off. Strain to remove all the bits of bone and vegetable

When cool enough, store in a gallon-size glass jar in the fridge for up to 5 days, or freeze for later use

A few weeks ago I heard a great story about a lady’s return to health that made me both happy and frustrated all at the same time. While checking out at Nordstrom’s the woman that was assisting me took down my email address and noticed that ‘Dr.’ was in the spelling. She continued to ask what kind of doctor I was and when I told her I was a chiropractor her face lit up as she told me how her chiropractor was the absolute best and was the only doctor she currently uses. This, of course, makes me smile, but also begs me to get more information. The explanation of her return to health was really summed up in one sentence. She said, “Two years ago I was on 14 medications and now I am on none!”. 14 MEDICATIONS!!!!! It is almost difficult to believe that someone can continue to be handed prescriptions at a rate so high. She said that she finally sought out this chiropractor because she was not satisfied with the direction of her healthcare and didn’t feel right taking that many medications every day. This particular chiropractor took control of her care and in two years she lost 50 pounds and was able to eliminate 14 medications from her life! That is just plain awesome. Can you imagine the negative side effects that 14 medications have on your system? Not only each individual one, but there also must be some negative interactions between these meds. Now, this story is really not to say how chiropractors are the best thing in the world. This could have been any other healthcare professional, like a dietician, a naturopath, an acupuncturist, or even another medical professional. The point is that she was able to turn her life around so drastically and truly control her own health.
This really made me smile as I walked out of the store, but this satisfaction was quickly joined by a feeling of frustration. Clearing 14 medications from the system and returning the body to a healthy state is a massive victory, but it begs the question of how someone can possibly be instructed to take all these medications in the first place. Was this really the direction that her previous healthcare provider(s) thought was in her best interest?? Surely there were multiple medical professionals who each lent a hand in boosting her prescription numbers. And maybe even 3 or 4 of these medications were given temporarily and not meant for long term use. However, this would still leave the patient with at least 10 daily medications and potentially no planned date for ending their use. Unfortunately, this has become a common scenario in today’s healthcare system; partly because multiple doctors are used to control a patient’s health and partly because many medical professionals rely on medications as their primary tool for ‘health’. Luckily, this patient decided to seek out advice from another health professional whose goal would be to fix things without using a prescription pad. My hope is not that we eliminate the use of all medications as there are extremely useful and necessary in many instances. My hope is that we use them only when other methods fail to provide solutions or if the body just cannot sustain health without them. I’m sure there are many stories just like this, but probably even more people that COULD have stories like this if they decided to finally take control of their own health.